


Sestra

by justanothersong



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Sexual Assault, Gen, Human Trafficking, Kidnapping, Minor Character Death, Scars, Undercover, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7753651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many reader-insert stories bring in new female characters as friends of Natasha (which I've done myself); I wanted to explore the idea of how such friendships might develop.</p><p>The (female) Reader is held captive and meets an intriguing woman named Natalie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sestra

It was late when they brought you the redhead. You had heard murmurs throughout the week that there was a shipment coming, though you had expected at least two or three girls, and were surprised to see the lone pale women with fiery hair standing before you, clutching a thread-worn blanket around her shoulders.

She looked stoic but was biting her lip, a blank expression masking something underneath. Terror, most likely. You’d seen it before, more times than you wished to count. More times than you wished to remember.

“This is Sestra,” the grunt who brought the girl told her, giving her a mighty shove in your direction. “You listen to her. She will teach you until it’s time.”

You did your best to force a smile. “Thank you, Bruno,” you told him with a clipped nod. Turning towards the woman, you hardened your voice and expression. “We have a lot of work to do in the next few days. I expect your cooperation, unless you would rather be spending your time with Bruno and his compatriots, do you understand?”

Mutely, the redhead nodded. Bruno eyed you both with interest, as if hoping the girl would react poorly straight away. The pig.

“As long as you are in this House, you are under my care and my guidance,” you went on, voice as cold as you could manage. “There will be no crying and no attempts at escape. Your purpose here is to prepare for auction. If you’re deemed unmanageable, you will be disposed of. Have I made myself clear?”

The girl nodded again, and you shook your head.

“I said, have I made myself clear?” you repeated, a tone or so louder.

The girl shuddered, and nodded again. “Yes,” she agreed.

“Yes what?” you prodded.

The redhead closed her eyes. “Yes, Sestra,” she responded.

You smiled. “Good,” you said, and turned to glance at the goon that had dragged her in the door. “You can leave us, Bruno. I believe we’ve come to an understanding.”

Clearly disappointed, the neanderthal nodded and slumped his shoulders, slamming the door to your chamber behind him and bolting it with a resounding click. You waited until you heard his footfalls die away, and then turned back to the girl with an expression far kinder than you could have given while Bruno was there.

 

“Are you hurt?” you asked, voice much softer than before. Your rooms were sparse and dark, but you had managed to squirrel away a few things for when they brought in new arrivals. From beneath the narrow bed you pulled out a first aid kit, and from the small wardrobe a warm sweater. The snow had been falling for days now and the temperature steadily dropping; in this part of the House, the insulation was poor and the barred windows frosted over with a layer of ice.

She shook her head but didn’t speak, shivering in the cold.

“It’s alright now,” you told her. “You can talk to me. There’s no one else here.”

She shuddered. “Yes, Sestra,” she responded, already taking on a monotonous tone.

“That is what they call me here, but you don’t have to, not when they’re not around,” you said quietly. You sat down on your thin mattress and gestured towards the armchair that had brought in for just such meetings. 

“What… what do I call you, then?” the redhead asked, eyes narrowing just the slightest bit.

You gave her a sad smile. “I would hope, in time, you will call me ‘friend’,” you said with a sigh. “But what should I call you -- your name?”

She bit her lip. “Natalie,” she finally relented after a long moment. “Natalie Roman.”

 

She was wearing a very thin dress, much as you had expected, and the blanket they had given her probably wasn’t doing much good. Most of the girls came in wearing such clothing, often plucked off the street or out of dance clubs and whisked away before they understood what was happening. You convinced her to don the sweater and sit in an armchair alongside your bed, rubbing her hands briskly with your own to try and get some feeling into her cold fingers, and began tending to her wounds.

They did what they could not to harm them, but the girls always game in with some injuries, especially the ones who tried to fight back. This one was a fighter, you could see, with broken bloodied nails and welts on her wrists where they had decided to finally bind her.

They typically wanted them free of any bruises or marks, particularly when the auction date was so close, so you knew it must have been quite a struggle.

“Did anyone get away?” you asked, bandaging her split thumbnail.

She winced. “Four,” she told you. “There were four other girls. We were in a shipping container, for a couple days. When we… when we figured out what was happening, we made a plan. The others got away, but I slipped and they caught me.”

“Smart girls,” you told her, with a nod of approval. “I’m sorry that you fell behind, but I’m glad you helped the others get free. You’re a fighter, aren’t you? That will serve you well. With any luck, we’ll have you home soon enough.”

The redhead arched a slender eyebrow at you. “What do you mean, Sestra?” she asked, pronouncing the title they had bestowed on you with no small amount of skepticism. 

“In a few days, they will put you up for auction,” you said quietly, listening as best you could to make sure no one was walking by your door or anywhere near enough to hear. “You will be sold to the highest bidder. If we’re careful, we can use the time we spend together to train you, to help you to get away.”

Her green eyes went wide with surprise. “What?” she said. It seemed the first unguarded word she had spoken since they had brought her in.

“In the last year, they’ve brought me sixteen girls,” you told her quietly, inspecting the welts upon her wrists that had already begun to bruise, checking for broken skin. “I know for certain that at least nine of them got away after leaving the House. I hope for more, but I’m certain about at least the nine.”

The redhead’s eyes narrowed; you could tell that she didn’t really trust you, and it was not as though you could blame her. You hadn’t trusted the House-mother in your day either, though she had done well enough to prove that your instincts had been correct. 

You sighed. “There have been more,” you explained. “This House used to be far more successful, their girls most sought-after. But the men who run it have suffered many losses and their reputation has gone down. Their numbers here have gone done, and that’s made it easier for me to help the girls they bring to me.”

“Why?” Natalie asked. “Why do you do this?”

“I’m as much a prisoner here as you are, dear,” you told her, cleaning up the mess from the first aid kit. You circled your small bed and moved to look out the window; the glass behind the bars was frosted at the corners but you could still see out into the snowy night. “You don’t think the bars on the windows and the locks on the doors are just for you, do you?”

 

You start slowly, the very next day. You don’t have much time but you don’t want to overwhelm her. You had taken self-defense classes before -- in your other life, as you liked to think of it -- and remembered much of what you had been taught; shame that you hadn’t been sober enough to employ those skills the night that you were taken. 

“It’s all in the little things,” you explain. “Aiming a kick might seem like a good idea, but what happens if you miss it?”

Natalie paused. “You could fall?” she offered.

You nodded. “You could fall,” you agree. “But worse, they could grab your extended leg, use it to throw you off balance. You’d fall harder that way and they could use it to aim you in such a way as to incapacitate you, you understand?”

“No kicking, got it,” she agreed, nodding.

“If you have to fight, if you absolutely have to, you want to go for the eyes,” you went on. You held your hands up in front of yourself, extending your fingers and curving them as best as you could into claws; the cold made them hurt, made them hard to bend, but you had to be sure she would understand. “You don’t need long nails to do damage there. It sounds gruesome, but you want to push as hard and as fast as you can into the eye socket. It will blind them, at least temporarily, and it will hurt like hell.”

“Is that the weakest place?” she asked curiously.

You nodded. “That and the nose. If you can’t go for the eyes, you want to flatten your palm and hit as hard as you can at the nose. Use the heel of your hand. If they grab you from behind, you aim for the same spot but you use your head. Remember, your skull is a hell of a lot harder than the cartilage in someone’s nose. Chances are they’ll instinctively grab for their face if it’s injured, and to do that? They have to let go of their grip on you.”

“What do you mean though, ‘if you have to fight’?” the girl asked curiously, and you smiled. This one was smart; she was listening, paying attention. She had a good chance at getting away.

“The best case scenario is to try and sneak away without engaging,” you explain, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. “Fighting is always a risk. They could have weapons, they could outweigh you. It’s a last resort.”

You glanced out the window; the snow was still falling. You weren’t allowed a clock of any kind but the darkness of the sky and the number of stars showing so brightly told you it was late. You were tired, feeling fatigue down to the bone. Training a girl always took so much out of you. On some level you knew it wasn’t just the physicality of it; there was a weariness of spirit, left from the anxiety of perhaps being caught or perhaps not doing well enough to help her.

“I think that’s enough for today, Natalie. You’re doing very well. Let’s try and get some sleep, okay? We can start again in the morning.”

 

You had insisted that she take the bed from the first night they brought her in. Part of it was a weird sense of hospitality, but part of it was also because you wanted her well-rested and quick on her feet. The chance to escape could come up at any time for her, and she needed to be at her best.

She didn’t argue this time, just laid herself down and pulled the blankets up to cover herself. You turned off the small lamp you kept on the bedside table and settled yourself into the armchair, covered with the blanket they had brought her wrapped in. The room was dim but not pitch, too much moonlight shining in, reflected off the falling snow. You stared out the window and sighed, watching it continue to come down.

“Sestra?” Natalie’s voice came from the bed.

“Yes?” you asked.

“Why do they call you that? ‘Sestra’, I mean,” she went on.

You sighed again; you had expected the question to come soon enough.

“It’s Russian,” you told her. “It means…”

“Sister,” she filled in, and you nodded.

“How did you know?” you asked.

The heard the rustling of blankets as she resettled herself in the bed. “Saw it on tv,” she told you through a yawn. “Orphan Black, you know?”

You smiled faintly in the dark. “No, I don’t,” you said. “I don’t get much chance to see any television anymore.”

You stayed quiet for a moment, eyes still on the window. It had been so long since you had been out of doors. Thinking back on it made it all the worse. You knew Natalie was waiting for you to speak, her eyes a glimmer in the dark.

“I had a younger sister,” you began to explain quietly. “Lucy. She was four years younger than me and when it came to be her 21st birthday, I of course had to take her to celebrate. She was a bright little thing, all smiles and laughter. I suppose… I suppose it was my fault, really. Letting her drink so much, not staying sober myself. One of us should have, to be safe. But it was her birthday and we were celebrating…” 

You trail off, your memory drawing you back to that night with cruel clarity. The laughter and the dancing and the drinking. She had worn a little plastic tiara, silver and pink, announcing that she was the birthday girl; you had taken her to some of your favorite places, never realizing the danger.

Your voice had hardened a little when you spoke again, tinged with bitterness.

“We caught a cab off the street,” you explained. “Neither of us were in any shape to drive and we thought we were doing the responsible thing, hailing a taxi outside the last club. But anyone can get a taxi these days… we didn’t realize anything was even wrong until we were too far outside of the city to escape. 

“They brought us here, eventually. The House-mother then, she was a cruel thing. Pretended to be your friend but beat you down the moment you showed any disobedience. When she began talking about the auction, me and Lucy decided we had to get away. Oh, we tried. The House-mother was playing at styling Lucy’s hair, dressing her up in different ways to see what would be best for the auction. We grabbed the hot curling iron and burned her; when she tried to get away, we wrapped the cord around her neck and pulled until she stopped fighting.”

You saw the girl shiver beneath the covers. You could understand that; it was a cruel thing, disgusting. You had vomited as soon as it became clear that the bitch was dead. 

“Then we waited for one of the guards to come in and told him something was wrong with the House-mother. He just took one extra step into the room, leaving the door open behind him, and we were gone running. But we didn’t know the house, we were scrambling for a way out, and they caught us before we reached the door.”

“What happened to Lucy?” Natalie asked quietly.

“We were beaten quite badly,” you explained. “They put us in a cell in the basement afterwards. Disobedient girls, you see, can’t be sold. Lucy was delirious for a few hours after… I was right there, holding her hand, but she kept asking ‘Where’s my sister? Where’s my sister?’. The guards thought it was funny. She didn’t last the night. Afterwards, well, I was too damaged to sell… I’m sure you’ve seen the scars.”

You watched as the shadowed outline of the girl nodded from the bed. Of course there would have been no way for her not to notice your scars, the pink slash that ran from the bridge of your nose and under your eye, the tear in your earlobe, the awkward way you carried your right arm. They left you to heal but they barely gave you any treatment, sewing you up when they decided to keep you.

“The House-mother was dead, so they needed another, and there I was. They started calling me ‘Sestra’ as a joke. As a reminder.”

“How long have you been here?” Natalie asked. There was pity in her voice now, and just hearing the note of it had tears threatening to spill from your eyes. You squeezed them shut and tried to force the tears away.

“I can’t say exactly,” you replied. “I can tell you for certain that they took us in summer… and this is my fourth winter in this House.”

 

Bruno came to your door in the early midnight hours, after your charge had fallen asleep. You startled when you heard the key in the lock and the deadbolts being thrown, having been nearly asleep yourself. You could tell by his stagger that he was drunk; it wasn’t the first time he had come to your room this way.

“Sestra, get me the girl,” he demanded, none too quietly.

You stood quickly, moving towards the door and blocking the path to where Natalie slept with your own body. You knew why he was there, what he wanted. And you weren’t about to let it happen.

“No,” you said quickly. “She’s sleeping, leave her alone.”

Bruno glared and lifted his arm as if to backhand you; you didn’t even flinch. It wouldn’t be the first time someone in the House had hit you, and it most certainly would not be the last, but he stilled his hand.

“Wake her,” Bruno told you, the stink of cheap liquor wafting on his breath. “There are things she must learn that you can’t teach her… but I can.” He gave you a leer that made your stomach turn.

You heard Natalie moving in the bed and stepped forward, further blocking Bruno’s view into the darkened room.

“If you step one foot in this room, I will scream,” you told him evenly. “I will throw things and break them and I will scratch your eyes out, do you understand? I will scream until the guards come and find you here, trying to… to ruin your boss’ property before auction.”

He swayed in the doorway, squinting and glaring, thinking about what you were saying.

“But if you promise to leave her,” you offered, knowing that your threat of violence wouldn’t be enough to send him off, “I will go with you. I won’t fight. I’ll do whatever you want. But you leave the girl be.”

He seemed to consider your offer, and reached one meaty paw to grab your chin, turning your face roughly into the light coming from the corridor, his nose wrinkling in disgust.

“With that face?” he grumbled, eyes flitting over your scars. “I’d sooner be on my own.” He paused before turning, reached out and slapped you hard enough to make you take a step back, a thin line of blood slipping from the corner of your mouth.

You were still standing there when he slammed the door and threw the bolts.

You were shaking when you returned to your chair, sinking into it with a slow sigh. It wasn’t as though it hadn’t happened before. Bruno and the others came now and again, when they’d been drinking too much or snorting some of their employer’s other exports. You always fought them at the door; they’d pulled you out, taking you up on the offer you made, more than once.

You’d decided long ago that you would protect your charges, no matter the threat. That would never change.

Natalie shuffled in the bed, sitting halfway up and regarding you in the dark. “Sestra?” she asked quietly. 

“Go to sleep, Natalie,” you told her, raising a hand to inspect your lip. You winced, feeling it swelling already. “We have a lot of work left to do. You need your rest.”

She didn’t listen, slipping out of the bed and moving towards the small bathroom. She came back with a cool damp towel, and sat on the edge of the bed, pressing it to your lip.

“We’re getting out of here,” she told you resolutely. “Both of us.”

You sensed a change in her; there had been so much quiet acceptance to begin with, then eagerness to learn. But this? A hardness, a fire in her blood… this you hadn’t seen before.

“Natalie?” you asked quietly.

The girl shook her head. “No,” she told you, standing up. She started pulling open dresser drawers, pulling out clothes and tossing them your way. “My name isn’t Natalie. It’s Natasha. And we’re leaving. Get dressed.”

 

You never knew where she produced the earpiece, but she flicked her thumb over it before pressing it into her ear and you could feel the change in the air, the radio frequency crackling to life.

“We’re go,” she said, talking to someone, you couldn’t imagine who. “I’ve learned everything I can here. It’s time to bring it down.”

“Natal… Natasha?” you asked, confused, feeling a little sick.

“Get dressed,” she told you again quickly. “It’s very cold out and we may have to walk a short way to get to transport.”

You frowned, shaking your head. “The door, it’s locked,” you reminded.

She grinned at you, and her smile was ferocious. “That’s never stopped me before.”

 

There were men moving through the House that you did not know, and flames licking at the walls on the far end of the corridor. One of the guards stopped you at the head of the stairs and the redhead - Natasha, now, it would seem - took him down in half a second, sending him to the floor below with a sickening crunch as the bannister collapsed beneath his wait.

“Hurry,” she told you, pushing you ahead of her on the stairs. “This place is going to blow soon. It’s not just a takedown, we’re sending a message.”

You stopped at the foot of the stairs, glancing back at the parlor beyond. You hadn’t even been on this level of the House in ages, but you remembered it well enough, remembered what they kept in there. You started to turn that way, and Natasha grabbed your arm.

“Sestra, we have to go!” she told you.

“The book!” you shouted back, the roar of the flames on the second level getting louder. “The books is in the parlor, locked in the desk!”

Natasha shook her head, looking beautiful and dangerous in the light of the flames. “What book?” she asked, grip still tight on your forearm.

“They kept track of the girls, all of them, where they went after they were sold, before I even got here,” you tried to explain, pulling at her grip. “Who bought them, what they paid. The ones who didn’t get away, their names will be there! We can’t let it burn up, someone has to find them!”

She hesitated only a moment, before raising a hand to her earpiece. “We need five minutes. Yes, I said ‘we’.” Glancing back to you, she relinquished her grip. “Lead the way.”

You saw the locked rolltop desk and ran to it, remembering the black leather book they kept sealed inside. You were so frantic to get to it that you ignore the flames creeping down the walls, and didn’t see the hulking shadow of a man approaching you.

Natasha shouted your name, but too late; you’d already bloodied your hands, pummeling the wooden rolling top to get to the book, too caught up in what you were doing to see Bruno approaching. He had been beaten badly, the room in disarray, but he still had strength enough to take his anger out on you.

The hunting trophy of some poor creature had hung over the fireplace in this room from the first time you entered, and had hit the floor in whatever scuffle led to Bruno’s injuries. He had snapped the sharp antlers from the animal’s head and you barely registered the pain as they punched through you from behind.

You stared down at the points of the antlers now pressing out through the flesh of your abdomen, blood trailing down onto the broken desk. The black book was in your hands but you were frozen in place, feeling cold in spite of the heat of the flames.

Natasha was shouting for you and you heard two gunshots, feeling the weight of Bruno’s body as through your shoes as he hit the floor. You turned towards her and stumbled, holding out the book to Natasha.

“Find them,” you told her, hitting your knees. “Please find them.”

The world slipped away then, inky black splotches eclipsing the golden flames until you knew no more.

 

“This was not a rescue mission,” you heard a brusque male voice saying somewhere nearby. You were pleasantly warm and though there was pain, it seemed dim and far away. You sighed a deep breath and the pain was a little sharper, but still not all that bad. “It was a slash and burn, nothing to be left but ashes.”

“She wasn’t there by choice,” Natasha interrupted, her voice cool and calm. “We don’t leave captives to die, Director.”

“You broke protocol,” the male voice responded and you opened your eyes, surprised to see a large man with an eye patch standing beside your bed. You were in a hospital, but it didn’t see much like one you had known before; the room was large, with lots of machines and bright lights, but little by way of personnel.

“I did what I had to,” Natasha told him.

He sighed angrily. “You had orders to follow, Romanov.”

Natasha stood before the angry man with squared shoulders, paying no mind to how his height seemed to dwarf her. She noticed you were awake and offered you a tight smile.

“I made a different call,” she told him simply.


End file.
